October 2012: The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) has released a review of technologies for tracking timber. The report, titled ‘Tracking Sustainability,” provides a summary of electronic and semi-electronic technologies employed to follow the path of timber and timber products through the supply chain.

The report considers constraints, advantages and costs of each system, through case studies from Brazil, Indonesia, Liberia and New Zealand, as well as regional projects in Central and South America.

Processes reviewed include mass balance, in which batches of timber are tracked, and physical tracking, in which a single unit is tracked. Within these processes, the report considers different identification methods such as paint markings, plastic tags, barcoding, radio frequency identification and DNA and isotonic sampling.

The report concludes with a series of recommendations on the selection of a timber tracking system, highlighting the importance of industry-wide consensus, adapting systems to national and local conditions, and making use of well-established barcoding and data capture technologies. The report also presents recommendations on the development of timber tracking systems related to funding, information sources, access to technologies and governance. [Publication: Tracking Sustainability]